Law Commons^™

The Parallel March Of The Ginis: How Does Taxation Relate To Inequality, And What Can Be Done About It?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The United States currently has one of the highest levels of inequality among industrialized economies. In addition, numerous scholars have shown that social mobility in the United States is significantly lower than it was in the period between 1945 and 1970, when inequality was declining. The combination of these trends is dangerous because it risks transforming the United States into a society where small elites capture most of the gains, a pattern in which growth cannot be sustained over time. The level of inequality in the United States after taxes and transfers are taken into account is much lower, but …

Accessible Reliable Tax Advice, Emily Cauble

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Unsophisticated taxpayers who lack financial resources are disadvantaged by a shortage of adequate tax advice. The IRS does not have the resources to answer all questions asked, and the IRS’s informal advice comes with no guarantee as to its accuracy and offers the taxpayer no protection when it is mistaken. Furthermore, non-IRS sources of advice have not sufficiently filled the void left by a lack of satisfactory IRS guidance. These biases against unsophisticated taxpayers have been noted by existing literature. This Article contributes to existing literature by proposing several novel reform measures to assist unsophisticated taxpayers.

First, with respect to …

Country By Country Reporting And Corporate Privacy: Some Unanswered Questions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Corporate privacy is an oxymoron. Individuals have a right to privacy, which the Supreme Court has recognized at least since Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Warren and Brandeis’ famous defense of the right to privacy (1890) clearly applied only to individuals, because only individuals have the kind of feelings that are affected by invasions of privacy. Corporations are legal entities, and the concept of privacy does not apply to them, as the Supreme Court held in 1906. Thus, any objection to making corporate tax returns public cannot rest on the right to privacy. In fact, corporate returns were made public in …

The Case Against Taxing Citizens, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The US is the only developed country to tax citizens living permanently overseas on their worldwide income. This rule was created at a time when the income tax applied only to the rich and when some of the rich moved overseas to avoid the draft. We do not have a draft any more, the income tax applies to the middle class, and many more US citizens live permanently overseas for non-tax reasons. In a globalized world, citizenship-based taxation is an anachronism which should be abandoned.

Taxation--Federal Income Tax--Treatment Of Nondistributable Capital Gains Of Domestic Trust With Foreign Beneficiaries, William C. Brashares

Michigan Law Review

Taxpayer, trustee of a domestic inter vivos trust, sued for a refund of United States income taxes paid on nondistributable capital gains of the trust. Trustee claimed that since all the beneficiaries of the trust were United Kingdom residents, this income was tax-exempt under the United States-United Kingdom tax convention provision that a United Kingdom resident "shall be exempt from United States tax on gains from the sale or exchange of capital assets." On appeal by the United States from a district court judgment for the trustee, held, reversed. Although distributable gains are allowed the exemption, long term capital …

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Meals And Lodging Under The 1954 Code, John H. Mcdermott

Michigan Law Review

Before discussing the application of the 1954 Internal Revenue Code with regard to the taxability of meals and lodging furnished an employee by his employer, several fundamental tax concepts should be examined. The first of these involves the definition of gross income, which for many years has been cast in broad statutory language. For example, section 22(a) of the 1939 Internal Revenue Code provided that gross income includes " ... gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service ... of whatever kind and in whatever form paid .... " Comprehensive as these terms appear, gross …

Principles That Should Govern In The Framing Of Tax Laws, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

"The foregoing paper was prepared for, and read before, the American Social Science Association, at its meeting in Cincinnati on April 22, 1878. It is not, as will be seen, a discussion of legal questions, but of questions in political economy. Still, at this time, when attention is very generally being directed to the principles of taxation, it will be found not wanting in practice interest to the legal profession." Professor Cooley takes on the problem of suitable and just taxation, a problem "forever demanding solution, but never solved." How do we set equitable rates based on personal valuation for …